


I dont care. I want you.

by Howlermonkey



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King, Stranger Than Fiction (2006)
Genre: Adult Eddie Kaspbrak, Adult Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier, Alternate Universe - No Pennywise (IT), Alternative Perspective, Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Bottom Richie Tozier, Comedian Richie Tozier, Eddie Kaspbrak Lives, Eddie Kaspbrak Loves Richie Tozier, Eddie Kaspbrak is a Mess, Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier-centric, Eventual Romance, Eventual Smut, Fix-It of Sorts, Fluff and Angst, Gay Eddie Kaspbrak, Gay Richie Tozier, Getting Together, Love Confessions, M/M, Misunderstandings, Mutual Pining, POV Eddie Kaspbrak, Porn With Plot, Porn with Feelings, Rating May Change, Richie Tozier Being an Asshole, Richie Tozier Loves Eddie Kaspbrak, Slow Burn, Soft Richie Tozier, Tags May Change
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-25
Updated: 2020-09-29
Packaged: 2021-03-07 23:15:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 16,551
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26645875
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Howlermonkey/pseuds/Howlermonkey
Summary: A Stranger than Fiction/IT AU!  Chapter will be updated quickly I like to finish these quickly so I can get back to reading them!Eddie is a tightly wound IRS agent drowning in ennui and a recurring nightmare about his impending death, Richie is the owner of a record store/comedy club who conscientiously objects to paying all of his taxes, and Eddie gets assigned his file, whatever will happen next? ;)Some art appears through chapters in heading links, still updating.Smutty scenes in Chapters 5 and 6.But Richie was Richie, and he couldn’t help himself when he said, “...what happened to not being allowed to give or receive gifts, Mr Kaspbrak? Bit of a mixed message here, doncha think?”Eddie looked down at the box for a moment, and back up again at Richie, his face such a mixture of sorrow and desire Richie felt his gaze like a gut punch and a hand on his heart.“I don’t care anymore” said Eddie evenly.“Why not?” asked Richie, his heart beginning to hammer.Eddie looked at him as though the answer was the most obvious thing in the world.“Because, I want you”
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Comments: 6
Kudos: 63





	1. Thirteen percent

**Author's Note:**

> If you haven't seen Stranger than Fiction, you should, it's wonderful.
> 
> Comments and kudos are loved and appreciated :)

When Eddie Kaspbrak woke up groggily on the morning of October 2nd, he knew it would be a bad day. A man described by his more kind coworkers at the IRS as ‘tightly wound’, and by the rest as a pain in the ass, he lived by a strict routine, a daily ritual of activities segmented into orderly chunks of time. Brushing his teeth took 2.5 minutes, washing his hands took 1 minute before eating, 0.5 minutes after. The walk to the bus stop took 7 minutes on a dry day, 8.5 on a wet one. Even the idle chit chat he occasionally partook in at the vending machines was ruthlessly timed by his internal body clock and his frequent, anxious glances at his wristwatch. Talking to Eddie Kaspbrak was a stressful experience for most, as they tried to fit in as much as possible before he took a look at that damn watch and extracted himself from the conversation. Central to this ceremonial way of life for Eddie, was the doctor recommended 8 hours of sleep, plus the 0.5 hours extra he liked to add on as a failsafe for good brain function and gut health.

So, on the morning of October 2nd when he woke up feeling like he hadn’t been asleep at all, Eddie knew he’d have a bad day. For the fifth night running, his sleep had been plagued by nightmares. Sleep was usually sweet oblivion to Eddie, when his body would charge and refresh over night so he could tackle a day of numbers, straight lines and order. He had never felt less refreshed that Friday morning when his alarm blared and he fought with his eyes to open. Images flashed before him as he blinked awake. 

A sense of impending doom, bright lights, screaming, children crying, a sickening pain in his arm, weightlessness. The same nightmare all week, leaving him writhing in sweaty sheets and fitfully snoozing instead of sinking into his usual, beloved REM cycle, tracked helpfully by his wristwatch.  
He sat up in bed and twisted to dangle his legs on the side, allowing himself a few moments out of his routine to wake up. He’d make them up somewhere else in the day, probably in the small talk in the break room. With a great sigh, he stood up and stretched his 41 year old body, padding softly to the bathroom to brush his teeth (2.5 minutes) and shower (6 minutes). 

Exhausted as he was, there was no chance in hell that Eddie Kaspbrak would be seen looking less than his best. He chose one of his crisp grey suits and a charcoal grey tie with silver clip to hold it in place, his white shirt buttoned up to the collar. His hair he combed neatly, running wax through it to hold it in place the way he liked it, before grabbing his already packed and ordered briefcase and leaving the minimalistic apartment for the pandemonium of the world outside.

The IRS building in the city was a calming sight to Eddie as he scaled the stairs, tracking his heart rate monitor carefully. He had some closed files to put away first thing, and longed for the solitude of the archive. Avoiding everyones gaze, he made his way to the basement, opening the door to the cool air conditioned room and closing it shut behind him. Eddie breathed deeply as he placed file after file away, basking in the white lights and endless sea of grey around him, totally devoid of any visual or aural stimulation whatsoever. For the first time all week, his muscles calmed, his shoulders sagged, and Eddie managed to relax. 

“Hey Eddie!”

It was Mike from the cubicle nearest him. A relentlessly cheerful man, he had yet to be intimidated by Eddie’s intense glare or his compulsive need to check his wristwatch whenever anyone spoke to him unexpectedly, disrupting his routine. He was marching quickly down the corridor towards Eddie, his shoes slapping against the hard floor, punctuating his approach and setting Eddie’s teeth on edge. He sighed before turning and attempting a smile that didn’t reach anywhere near his eyes. If Mike noticed he didn’t say anything. He had two files in his hands, one noticeably thicker than the other.

“Hey!” he said again, and Eddie flinched, “I got you the best file ever, this guy is loaded but get this – he’s trying to claim a jet ski as a work vehicle! He owns copper mines for pete's sake, in what world would he need -” Mike stopped abruptly, looking into Eddie’s face for the first time, registering the deep dark circles under the man’s eyes and the way the muscle in his jaw was popping. He frowned, “Are you ok?”

Eddie seemed a million miles away, and nodded slowly. Mike glanced down quickly at the two files in his hands and back up at Eddie, saying, “On second thoughts, maybe you should do this one” he slid the thinner file out and handed it to Eddie, who took it automatically.

“It’s a weird one, the guy wrote a cover letter explaining why he wasn’t going to pay all his taxes. It’s such a small amount we may not even have noticed if he hadn’t! Owns a record store that moonlights as a comedy club down town, might be a better bet for you at the moment...” he scrutinised Eddie’s face again and took a step closer. His proximity drove Eddie out of his reverie, and he answered Mike’s further questions with a hasty, “I’m fine, just didn’t sleep well last night. I’d better go and begin the paperwork for this, shouldn’t take too long. I’ll probably even be able to go to the premises myself this afternoon”. He nodded to Mike and strode away, taking out his phone as he went. 

The firms in house therapist also lived life in useful segments, but his were half hourly and cost the company a small fortune. Eddie booked in a session with him via the online system after zoning out so badly with Mike, scheduling it during his 30 minute lunch break so it wouldn’t get in the way of his assignment. At 12:27 he rode the elevator to the fourth floor, marched past the cubicle bull pen there, and found the right door. It had no windows, and a placard said Dr Stanley Uris, PhD. He checked wristwatch for the time. It was 12:29. He waited until 12:30 before he rapped smartly on the door. 

“The same dream?”

“Nightmare,”corrected Eddie, stealing a quick glance at his watch. Dr Uris’ sharp eyes followed his, and he made a small note on his paper. “i think it constitutes a nightmare if I see myself die every night when I’m asleep”.

Dr Uris sat quietly, considering Eddie, who waited for his diagnoses impatiently. What was it, a brain tumour? PTSD? Could it be some kind of new cancer that spreads across the frontal cortex and creates nightmares? Does he have a pathological fear of death? As he stressed himself out considering all the possibilities, and anticipating a new meds routine to programme into his alarm schedule, Stanley sat forward. 

“Well, after everything you’ve told me, I suggest you’re simply over wrought Mr Kaspbrak,” he said flatly. Eddie stared, waiting to be prescribed the pill for that.  
“You’re holding yourself to an impossible schedule while doing a job which is already stressful. I advise … lightening up a little”. He waited for Eddie to react. 

“Lighten. Up?” Eddie considered the words, his thick brows beginning to knot together in a frown.  
Stanley was unperturbed by this reaction, clearly used to receiving worse.

“Yes. I also suggest removing your watch for short periods of the day. Checking the time seems to have become a compulsive habit, which isn’t entirely healthy”. He turned his paper around and Eddie saw a tally. He counted at least 15 marks before Stanley said, “That’s how many times I noticed you check your watch in our meeting Mr Kaspbrak”.  
Eddie blushed a little, his brow softening, replaced with a look of abject confusion and exhaustion. He pinched the bridge of his nose sharply. Stanley felt a pang of pity for the man, hunched and depleted before him. He leaned over and said with a gentler tone, 

“Think about it Eddie. Simplify things a little. Take a moment to breath, to look at your life. What’s your story? Are you in a comedy or a tragedy? I know you feel you’re in a horror movie at the moment, what with these recurring nightmares you’ve been experiencing, but trust me, try and relax, be more spontaneous, and I think you’ll be better off for it.”

\---------------------------------

Two bus rides and four wristwatch checks later, Eddie arrived at the offender’s premises. He checked the name on the file. Richard Tozier. He checked the name of the premises too, matching it with the faded hand painted one above the windows and grimacing slightly with distaste. Trashmouth Records and Comedy Club. It was indeed a record store like Mike had said, sandwiched between a busy bakery and an art supplies store. A blackboard outside detailed the nights that week it was open as a comedy club, and Eddie could see from peering through the slightly grimy windows, that there was a small stage with a dilapidated drum set on it, and tables and chairs visible here and there amongst the racks and stacks of records. There were people sitting on chairs throughout the store, listening on headphones to music, sipping coffees or chatting idly to friends. A counter covered in carved names and doodles stood in front of a small but well stocked bar at the back, and a tall man was leaning behind it, concentrating hard on something. Eddie refocused his eyes on his own reflection in the window, straightened his tie, and walked in. 

The man looked up from the counter, large blue eyes peering over thick framed glasses perched near the end of his nose. His unruly hair fell in loose waves over his forehead, curling messily behind his ears, a brightly coloured Hawaiian shirt slung across his back over a faded band T shirt. His large hands stilled in the motion of writing on a thick pad of tightly scrawled notes, the other clutched a coffee. It steamed gently as he took Eddie in, a smile blooming across his face at the sight of the impeccably neat man with huge brown eyes under thick eyebrows, seemingly thrumming with nervous energy. 

Eddie picked his way towards him, clutching his briefcase to his chest, trying not to knock over or touch any of the piles of old records or sticky tables.  
“Mr Tozier?” The man quirked an eyebrow up at the ‘mister’ and nodded. Eddie was aware that all the attention in the store was on him as he reached the counter and said, 

“My name is Mr Kaspbrak, I am an agent from the IRS, sent to investigate a 13% deficit in your tax return for the fiscal yea-”

“Fuck you” said the man loudly. “Fuck this. Fucking TAX MAN!” 

He slammed his coffee down on the scratched counter and stared at Eddie, as if daring him to come any closer or quote anymore IRS statistical bullshit at him. The other patrons joined in his shout like it had been a battle cry. Eddie had had doors slammed in his face before, but he’d never been literally booed as though he were a pantomime villain. He knew this was going to be a bad day, and here was the proof. Before Eddie could recover from the outburst, the man had turned on his heel and disappeared to the back of the store, slamming the door behind him. Eddie stood stock still and ramrod straight, still holding the briefcase to his chest like a shield. He felt a dozen stares on the back of his neck, making him prickle, pissing him off. With a quick glance around the room, and with the air of someone steeling themselves, he strode around the counter and followed Tozier around the back of the store. 

He found him in room that was clearly an office and storeroom, striding angrily between filing cabinets and rummaging in boxes. Now and then he would find a piece of paperwork and threw it in a trashcan he had pulled near him. Eddie coughed from the doorway, but the man just continued to seize things seemingly at random from the office, ignoring Eddie entirely until the trashcan was almost full. Eddie tried again.

“Mr Tozier?” The man stilled in his pursuits, breathing hard with his back to Eddie. 

“It’s Richie” he said in a hard voice. 

“You stole from the government Mr Tozier. That’s what not paying all your taxes is. It’s stealing”

The man turned quickly, a look of righteous indignation on his face. 

“Yeah, you know here’s the thing. I don’t mind paying taxes to, I dunno, fix fucking roads, or pay for schools, or healthcare, or food for the god damn homeless, in fact fuck that, how about homes for the god damn homeless” he was getting agitated as he continued, “but what I can’t see myself paying for, is the huge proportion of my cash that gets absolutely spunked out daily on weapons of mass destruction, and pays for a government committed to stripping away the rights of anyone who doesn’t fit their own agenda – fuck you if you ain’t straight, fuck you if you ain’t white, and fuck you if you don’t got a big old bank account stuffed with more money than you’ll ever need. So no! I didn’t really feel like paying those taxes.”

Eddie’s expression hadn’t changed during this rant. It had taken some force of will to keep from reacting to Mr Tozier’s reasoned, if foul mouthed argument. He remembered the smile that had adorned this man’s face when he first walked in, before he had introduced himself and wiped it away. He swallowed audibly, keeping his voice clipped and professional as he said, “I can tell you’re very passionate about this Mr Tozier. I take it you’re referring to the 13% you neglected to pay. Did you work out the 13% deficit yourself?”

Richie’s face twisted into a smile with no warmth behind it, at odds with the habitual friendly lines of his face,  
“Yeah. I chose the year I had my big gay none government sanctioned sexual awakening, seemed as good a figure as any to give a big eff you to the man with.” He looked closely at Eddie, as if waiting to see his reaction. When there was none, he leaned in closer, “That was quite a year Mr Kaspbrak” he said slowly, “and I’ve not looked back since”. 

Eddie felt his face flush and blinked stupidly a few times before saying, “Be that as it may Mr Tozier, -”

“13 also happens to be the amount of inches I’m packing” Richie continued recklessly, gesturing unnecessarily at his crotch and chasing the newfound high of making Mr Kaspbrak fumble and blush. 

When Eddie just gave him a hard stare and said, “Congratulations” in a flat tone, Richie cheered inwardly. Maybe this Kaspbrak was more than just a neat suit after all, but Richie would be damned if he’d surrender that 13% without a fight. 

“Great!” he said enthusiastically, “if that’s settled, I guess I should hand over my files for the fiscal year, huh?” Eddie looked suspiciously at the huge grin on Richie’s face as he said this. He looked around the mess of the office and felt a sinking feeling deep in his gut. Maybe I should have taken the fiddling mine owner with his fucking jet ski, he thought desperately. 

He fixed Richie with his hardest, most intense glare, “Yes Mr Tozier, once I have all that I can make sure you only owe the government that 13%.”

Richie snorted, “Perfect, well then, here ya go Mr Kaspbrak, it’s all yours” and he handed Eddie the trashcan . He took it gingerly, peering into it at the mess of rumpled and sometimes torn papers inside. He looked up under his brows at Richie sharply. 

“This is your tax return information for last year?” he asked, a tremble in his voice threatening to betray just how pissed off he was growing with Richie fucking Tozier.

The man himself smiled innocently, “Sure is guv’nor! I know how important it is to ‘ole uncle sam, so I’m extremely fastidious about my files as you can see.”  
Eddie looked into the depths of the trashcan. So far it only looked like paper, but what was at the bottom? There could be sedimentary layers of filth down there, teeming with bacteria and fungus, spores just waiting to be released into his lungs. He’d get pneumonia and die alone in his apartment, he just fucking knew it. He felt like crying. Sighing inwardly, he said,

“Very well Mr Tozier. If you can show me to a place I can work, I’ll get started immediately. The quicker I get started the quicker I can leave you in peace.”

Richie led him to the front of the store where there were tables and chairs set up near the small stage.  
“There ya go man!” he smiled, gesturing to a low coffee table and a chair almost as tall as a bar stool. Eddie shot him a sharp look, brow knitted together in frustration. 

“That’s where I’ll be working?” he asked, deadpan.

“Sure!” Richie grinned maniacally back at him. 

Eddie pinched the bridge of his nose and gestured a hand out, “The table is absolutely tiny”

“Yeah, it’s Mr Kaspbrak sized” Richie shrugged. 

Eddie sighed. He was used to jibes and inferences about his height, which statistically was in the top percentile of average across Northern America by the way.  
“Fine. But the chair is way too tall for this table, Mr Tozier” he replied through gritted teeth. 

Richie looked at the chair as if seeing it for the first time. Running a broad hand across his stubble, he drawled, “Well, that’s all I can rustle up at such SHORT notice for ya Mr Kaspbrak”, plainly ignoring the dozens of other chairs of all shapes and sizes crowding around the other tables. 

Eddie vibrated within with righteous indignation, but looking at Mr Tozier’s face, he knew it was a losing battle. The quicker he started work, the quicker he could get out of here and home where it was tidy and clean and everything made sense. He was so keyed up, he completely forgot to mark the time on his wristwatch. 

Eddie folded up his sleeves carefully, ensuring each side was folded four times and made a cuff of 3.5 inches. He folded his tie over his right shoulder from where in his stooped position on the low table and the tall spindly chair, it kept dangling in the way. He made sure it was smoothed out flat against his shirt, placed his hand sanitiser on the table next to him, picked up his pen, and began to work. He began to work. He began to work. He began to work five times over, because any time he would begin to get anywhere, Richie would laugh uproariously from somewhere in the store. Or he would decide to play a new death metal album while shouting that he’d turned it up to eleven in an atrocious cockney accent. Or he would hand over the drum sticks he kept in a jar behind the counter to a kid who’d proceed to bang on them with no rhythm for a good thirty minutes. Every time Eddie had to stop, his hand would shoot up to his temple to rub the increasingly large stress vein growing there, and he would glower over at Richie. This only seemed to fuel the fire in the other man, who grinned whenever he saw Eddie looking at him, and it wasn’t until he disappeared out for lunch, shouting out everyone’s orders from Anna’s bakery next door (everyone’s except Eddie’s) that Eddie managed to get any real work done at all. 

“Hey Mr tax man, you’re not gonna tax me for coming in here are ya?” said a voice above Eddie. 

He looked up from his work and saw an ageing man standing near him, most of his face hidden in a tangle of beard and hair, his clothes old and threadbare. Eddie thought he could see a grimy band t shirt under his overcoat, and from the way the man was clutching at his bag like it was all he owned in the world, he realised he was probably homeless. As he opened his mouth to reply, Richie’s voice cut across him as he entered from outside.

“Hey Jack!” Richie said with a grin to the man, “come to finish that album? Get your ass in that booth and warm up, I’ll bring you a coffee buddy”. 

The homeless man gave him a rather toothless smile in return and made his way to the listening booth at the back of the store, where a comfortable armchair and side table stacked with albums ready to play stood by a large record player with headphones attached. Richie must have been expecting the man, thought Eddie, as the album he clearly wanted to finish today was perched on top of the pile. He watched surreptitiously from under his thick brows as the man settled in the chair and Richie came whistling from the back, cradling a large coffee in one hand and a plate piled high with cake in the other.

“Cream and sugar...” muttered the man from his chair and Richie smiled, saying in a clipped British accent, 

“Lashings of cream my good sir, and no less than five sugars as per your usual order”. 

Eddie’s face felt strange, and it took him a moment to realise he was smiling. After that, despite things quieting down in the store and distracting him less, he still found time to glance over at Richie. 

The light grew low outside the window, first blue and then softening to the yellow-pink of the street lamps. Dry leaves skittered about the sidewalk as shop bells tolled closing time and people wrapped themselves in scarves before venturing out to brave the chill evening air. Richie kept late hours, Eddie had noted as he first arrived, so he decided to finish up the first quarter before leaving. Tomorrow was Saturday anyway, a good day to try to follow Dr Uris’ advice and have that which, in Eddie’s life, was rarer than a unicorn – a lie in. He was surrounded by a web of smoothed out paperwork, some sticky-taped back together and barely legible. He had a sore back from stooping all day, and a stress headache from trying to piece together the petulant jigsaw puzzle of Richie’s filing system. As he paused briefly, rubbing his temple, the same voice from earlier sounded above him in time with a blast of cold air entering the store.

“’Night Mr tax man” said Jack as he left.

“It’s Eddie” he replied, but the door has already closed on him. He sighed and squeezed the bridge of his nose, “I’m Eddie”. He heard a noise by the bar and looked up just in time to see Richie turn and walk into the storeroom. Looking down at his latest receipt, his head hammering and his energy level low, he considered the open doorway for a moment before snatching up the paper and following Richie to ask what it said, hoping to avoid the necessity for yet another Sherlock Holmes level of deduction. 

Richie was sorting through a delivery of records. When he saw Eddie he began to speak, a quick babble of words layered in sarcasm and smattered with swearing. Eddie wasn’t listening. He was too busy lost in the way Richie’s muscled forearms moved as he heaved boxes of LP’s about the dusty storeroom, and the way his hair curled so perfectly around the shell of his ear. He dragged his eyes across the sharp line of Richie’s stubbled jaw, and imagined how it would feel under his lips, or across his neck. He watched as his well practised fingers deftly sorted through faded sleeves, and for a brief, bright moment, imagined them carding through his own neat hair. 

He didn’t notice then that those clever fingers had stopped, and that Richie was paused exaggeratedly in his motion, an incredulous look of mild surprise across his face. Eddie stared, his thin face looking almost blank, almost concealing the look of deep longing that had began to kindle inside him. 

“Dude” said Richie, loudly. Eddie snapped out of it, coming to like he was waking up from a short and unscheduled nap. 

“Sorry” he frowned.

“Why don’t you take a picture, it would fucking last longer”

Eddie looked mournful as he flushed red, “No, I wasn’t looking at you” he lied. Richie snorted, “Yeah right” and moved to pick up another box. 

Eddie found himself getting angry. Angry at this man for assuming he could be attracted to someone as chaotic, as untidy, as foul mouthed as him. Angry at himself for being attracted to him anyway. He turned and stalked back to his table, fuming inside. Glancing at his wristwatch for the first time in an hour, he saw it was 17:45. He’d figure the receipt out on Monday he decided, and began to pack everything away neatly. 

Deep resonant music came on over the stores speakers. It was evening music, slow and relaxing, not asking much of anything from the listener but to be allowed to fall on their ears and sooth them after a long day out in the world. Eddie felt it like a balm, closing his eyes he let it wash over him for a moment, trying to wash away this god awful day. 

“Beer?”

Richie’s voice jolted him from his reverie. Turning he saw him pulling out a chair from a nearby, freshly cleaned table, watching Eddie and waiting for a reply.

“Wh-what?” he stuttered, completely thrown by this sudden change in attitude towards him, suspecting a trap somehow.

Richie stood up straight. He said in gentle tones “Do you want to sit and have a beer with me?”

Eddie’s brain began to whir. If he got the 18:11 bus from bus stop B on Derry Avenue, he’d get home at 19:36, giving him enough time to make a nutritious dinner, shower and get ready for bed in time to get the ideal 8.5 hours of sleep needed to for proper brain function and health. Every bus he missed chipped away at that golden 8.5 hours, and he was already exhausted, emotionally and physically from his day.

“Thank you. But no, I’d better be going, I have a bus to catch”

“Come on man, you’ve had a shitty day. I know. I made sure of it” said Richie, with something like regret and something like pride mingling in his voice. “Come and have a drink and listen to a record with me.”

Eddie felt temptation bloom in his chest. He found himself wanting to sit and spent time with this man, with his messy hair and wrinkled shirt, in this chaotic store of teetering piles of LP’s, beer cases and mismatched furniture. He slowed down his packing slightly, giving himself time to recover from the overwhelming feeling of want.

“I really can’t, I have lots of work to do for tomorrow” he said, keeping his eyes down so Richie wouldn’t see just how much this was costing him. 

“Eddie”

His name, soft in Richie’s mouth, forced him to look up with a jolt. Richie stood there by the table, one hand on the chair he had begun to pull out for him, two beer bottles damp with condensation clutched in the fingers of the other, big and broad and frowning his way. 

“Haven’t you ever just sat with a beer, and shot the shit with friends after a no-good godawful kind of day?” he asked, a slight whine making it’s way into his voice.

The innocent question wove into Eddie’s mind, calling up long repressed memories of a grey childhood. 

“No. I didn’t really have friends, growing up” answered Eddie, taken aback by his own personal honesty. He coughed, “I was homeschooled by my mother you see, so I didn’t really meet many people.”

Richie stared, a look of understanding growing on his face, softening his jaw and making his gaze gentle as it lighted on Eddie’s thin frame and sorrowful face. 

“Get over here and drink a beer with me”, he ordered, and Eddie found his feet in their neat shoes walking towards the proffered chair. He sat up straight in it, and Richie chuckled as he sat heavily in the chair opposite, immediately shrugging down into a comfortable lounging sitting position.


	2. I think I'm in a tragedy

Several empty bottles of beer had begun to fill up the table, each a different type with a colourful illustration on the labels. Richie explained a bit about each one, in a voice he called his hipster douchebag, telling Eddie about the floral notes or hoppy aftertaste. Eddie found himself feeling buzzed, not sure if it was the beer or simply being around Richie Tozier. It had been hours since he’d last looked at his watch, and he found he couldn’t bring himself to care too much about the sleep he was missing by staying with Richie in his untidy store. He felt refreshed anyway, from watching the way Richie’s broad shoulders would shake as he laughed at Eddie’s unintentional jokes, the way he slouched and had bad posture, they way he self consciously covered his slight overbite sometimes when giggling. He lit up like a fuse when he talked about starting the comedy nights at his store, and grew soft when he told Eddie about his best friends who came to every performance. 

Eddie found himself opening up to Richie, telling him all about his childhood imprisoned in a small house, in a small town, in a small state. It occurred to Eddie his entire life had been very small, and when he mentioned this to Richie with the beginnings of a depressed tone in his voice, the comedian had made a joke about Eddie’s height and dick size and he’d finished the sentence laughing. 

As he felt the muscles in his face begin to relax, to get used to the new use they were put to in an Eddie who smiled and laughed, he began to think about Dr Uris’ words of advice. He never really did think much about his life, how it may look on the outside to anyone who cared to take the time to notice. No-one had until today, not even Eddie. As he found himself belly laughing at Richie’s lively, frenetic conversation, he thought perhaps his life was a comedy after all. 

“Man, your mom sounded like a pill” Richie said, a hint of seriousness sneaking into his tone after Eddie had described his strictly regimented childhood, living by the living room clock to study, eat, medicate and sleep. 

“Well, I had a pill for everything growing up so, makes sense my mom would be one” Eddie smiled, wondering if he was being disloyal by telling Richie so much about his mother. She was long gone, but her presence still haunted him in his need for structure and routine, his hypochondria, and his belief that no-one in the world could love him, except her. 

Richie leaned heavily on the back of his chair, an arm slung over the back swinging lazily. He had smiled when Eddie began to loosen up after a few beers, the smile growing into a grin of cheshire cat proportions when he found the tightly wound man mirroring his own easy posture and resting an arm over the back of his chair, his shirt pulling taut over an unexpectedly muscled and wiry torso. He caught Eddie’s large brown eyes for a moment and held his gaze, the air prickling between them. Eddie looked away first, his eyes travelling to his wristwatch.

“I saw you looking at that a lot today” said Richie, shifting to rest his chin on his large hand and leaning towards Eddie.

Eddie glanced up guiltily before remembering that Richie didn’t know just how much of a compulsion it was for him. “Oh yeah,” he said apologetically, “I’ve been told it’s an unhealthy habit of mine, I’m trying to quit.”

Richie roared with laughter, “Kaspbrak, you sure get off a good one! Of all the unhealthy habits to try and go cold turkey for!” he continued laughing as Eddie’s frown slowly became a rueful smile, and he even managed a small chuckle at himself. 

Silence descended as Richie’s joy burned itself out, but the ghost of his laugh remained as he gazed at Eddie through shining eyes. His hand idly toyed with a peeling label on one of the craft beer bottles, dangerously close to Eddie’s as he held his own almost empty fourth bottle. He focused on the hairs on the back of Richie’s hand, the callouses visible when he moved his fingers deftly over the bright paper of the label, gently but determinedly peeling it back further and further from the bottle, exposing more of it’s brown glass. It felt like breaking through the surface of a lake after drowning when Eddie managed to say, “I’d better call it a night.”

Richie’s head jerked towards him, “Aw really? One more beer Eds, come on”

Eddie shook his head, “Thanks Richie, but really, I’ve had a long week with barely any sleep, I think just need to go to bed.”

Richie opened his mouth, the beginning of a lascivious smile twisting on his mouth, but when his eyes travelled up to Eddie’s care worn face and tired eyes, he seemed to think the better of whatever he was going to say. 

“Ok ok, but hold on one second” he stood up and walked towards the counter. He opened a fridge behind the bar and bounced back over to Eddie.

“This is for you”, said Richie, handing Eddie a duck egg blue box. He took it gently and saw the logo for Anna’s Bakery printed across the top. He glanced up at Richie, “When did you…?”

Richie shifted uncomfortably in his chair, “When I went and got everyone’s lunch. To be honest, I had already started feeling like a total jerk by that point and I wanted to try and make it up to you.”

Eddie looked down at the box in his hands. He didn’t usually frequent bakeries, his mother always said sweets rot your teeth and anything with too much butter gave you indigestion, or worse. He opened it up with slightly trembling hands, touched in spite of himself, and was immediately hit by the sweet scent of vanilla. It was a large custard and cream dessert with a sugared pastry lid. He stared at it. 

“It’s a karpatka”, explained Richie when Eddie still hadn’t spoken a full minute later. “Anna does all sorts of awesome desserts from round the world. This one’s from Poland.”

“Poland?” Eddie asked quietly.

Richie ran a hand through his hair compulsively, “Well yeah … I figured with a last name like Kaspbrak – it’s Polish right?”

Eddie was stunned. No-one had ever made that connection before. No-one had ever taken the time to look twice at him, let alone allow him into their minds enough to ponder on the geographical origins of his last name. No-one at all, except this man he had just met today, who he had spent most of the time glaring at while diligently investigating him for tax fraud. Eddie barely had time to ride the previously unknown high of being worth someones notice when reality kicked in. He closed the lid, noticing the look of confusion on Richie’s face as he slid the box across the table to him, 

“Thank you Richie, but I can’t accept this”.

Richie blinked and stiffened his posture, “Why not?” Eddie winced at his hurt tone.

“I’m investigating you for fraud, I can’t accept things like this, it’s not allowed Richie”

Richie leant back in his chair, his relief palpable. Eddie wasn’t rejecting his overture of peace, he thought, he was just being a little bitch to bureaucracy. He waved a hand airily, “Ah come on Edwardo” he smiled breezily, “I won’t tell if you won’t”. He winked roguishly and Eddie wanted him so badly it hurt. He pushed the impulse away and tried to gain control again. 

“I really can’t” said Eddie, his professional voice making it’s way back into conversation. Richie noted it with blooming displeasure and his face began to fall. Eddie panicked,

“It would constitute a gift you see, which I’m absolutely not allowed to accept” something like an apologetic whine escaped Eddie’s tight lipped mouth. Please understand he thought. Please understand that this isn’t me saying no. Please, just get it. 

Richie didn’t get it. He stood up so quickly his chair tipped over onto the floor, and turning his back on Eddie to hide his own resounding disappointment as he snapped, “Maybe you should just go Mr Kaspbrak”

Eddie made to stand up, “I’m really sorry -”

“Just get out!” 

Eddie picked up his coat from the back of the chair and folded it over his arm, his face fell into it’s habitual lines of sorrow, his eyebrows a furrow above dark eyes beginning to brighten with tears, and said with a half turn towards Richie,

“I know this won’t make any sense to you, but I think I’m in a fucking tragedy”.

At his words, Richie made an involuntary movement as if to touch him, but Eddie had already moved out of reach, his quick step taking him out of the door and Richie’s presence as fast as he could.


	3. A small and inadequate imposter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After blowing it with Richie, Eddie spends a weekend trying to come to terms with his life and himself, with a little help from an unexpected source.  
> Bit of self hatred mentioned in this chapter, and Richie being an asshole.

After the cacophony of colour and energy that had been the whirlwind of Richie’s store, Eddie’s cold apartment fell on his eyes with a brutal frigidity he’d never noticed before. Everything that hinted that someone lived here was put away behind a smooth grey cupboard door, even the toothbrush he used to diligently twice a day. He’d held his aching head in his hands the whole bus ride from Richie’s, desperate to get into his apartment and close the door behind him, but now he was here on the threshold, he was filled with the mad urge to rush back out again. Closing the door felt like closing the lid on his own coffin. He let his briefcase drop to the floor and walked zombie like to his bedroom, collapsing onto the neat bed fully clothed, his brain letting him fall asleep so quickly he suspected it was a survival strategy or coping mechanism. 

He used to feel better after a sleep, but he woke up feeling as exhausted as he had the night before, as though his mouth and head were stuffed with cotton wool, parched and gasping in the weak autumn light coming through the windows he’d forgotten to cover. As he lay there, trying to muster the energy to get up for a glass of water, flashes of his nightmare came to him again. This time he let his mind linger on them, a sucker for punishment, a martyr to pain. He heard the screams and the sound of a child laughing, then crying. He felt the ghost of pain flit across an arm and the untethered weightlessness that always followed.  
He dwelled for a while in the memory of nothingness, until Richie’s voice came into his head unbidden. He groaned with regret as he remembered the look on his face when Eddie had rejected the karpatka he’d waited all day to give him. Eddie had never minded offending people before, had been on the receiving end of countless reproaches and injured looks. He felt safe in the knowledge that his behaviour was always justified; more than justified – it was policy. Like Dr Uris had suspected, Eddie hadn’t spent much time examining himself or how he came across to other people. Eddie thought about last night with Richie. He couldn’t push away the gut wrenching feeling he had, recalling in perfect clarity the smile that slid from Richie’s face, the moment he realised it wasn’t all a big joke, the second he understood that Eddie really was just a corporate suit, a slave to the machine, a total fucking prick. Eddie hated himself. He turned his face into the bedsheets, pushing in hard enough to hurt, and screamed. 

Weekends were usually time to recharge for another week of work for Eddie, to ensure he’d be able to give all his energy and focus to the task at hand. It had never occurred to him to use them for leisure, or to hang out with friends, because he didn’t have any. Saturday and Sunday each week found Eddie hitting up the gym for hours, followed by a healthy refuelling meal, cleaning his apartment minutely and getting a head start on any work for the week ahead. He could barely get out of bed for a glass of water, so on this Saturday, he knew he’d not be going to the gym. 

Finally finding the impetus to sit up with a groan and creaking joints, he swung his legs off the bed and stood up, keeping his eyes almost closed as he padded to the bathroom. Ignoring the clean glass on the sink, he turned on the faucet and stuck his head under the cold gush of water, taking deep pulls of it down his burning throat. He began stripping off his sweat drenched work clothes, wrinkling his nose at the slightly sour smell. He stared a moment at his naked body in the mirror, at his good posture and sharp edges, gym honed torso and lean legs, feeling horribly hollow inside. Leaving his clothes in an ignominious pile on the floor, evidence of his slovenliness, he stepped into the shower stall and turned on the water, feeling more human as it washed away the dirt and disgrace he felt from yesterday. 

With some of the immediate guilt assuaged, new thoughts crept into his mind. Why was he feeling like this at all? A man with no real personal relationships, he’d only met this guy yesterday, spent half the day furious with him while trying to deal with an intense and building attraction to him. The memory of broad shoulders, an easy grin, a joyous laugh, kindness shown in cakes and coffee, had Eddie gritting his teeth, his jaw working furiously. The smile of Jack as Richie led him to a warm armchair, the smile of everyone who so much as looked at Richie in the store that day came back to Eddie. He thought he couldn’t remember the last time anyone had smiled because he had walked into a room, then with a thud recalled the grin blooming on Richie’s face when he had first seen Eddie entering his store. 

“Fuck” he said, smacking his hands against the tiles. “FUCK!” 

Towelling off his short hair as he walked into his tidy lounge, he saw a light flashing on the answer machine. This had never happened before. He always woke up to countless messages and voice mails on his work phone, even when he checked and answered them before bed most nights, but this was his personal phone number, and may as well have been unlisted for the amount of times it never rang. He crossed over to it suspiciously, a half formed thought in his head of Richie, when he pressed the button and Mike’s voice rang out in his quiet apartment, as loud and jarring as it had been yesterday in the archive. 

“Hey Eddie!” said the blithe voice, “I hope you don’t mind me calling you at home, I got your number from your personnel profile. I, er -” he paused, “well, to be honest, I was a little worried about you yesterday after I gave you that case file. When you didn’t come back to the office that afternoon I thought maybe you were sick.”

Eddie blinked. Mike had noticed? That was two now, two people who had noticed Eddie in as many days. He focused back on Mike’s voice as he continued “...so I wanted to get in touch and check you’re ok I guess. So, yeah, are you ok?”

The message clicked off, leaving Eddie staring stupidly at the machine in the now silent room. He usually liked the quiet, but this was a new world, a world where he wasn’t as invisible as he thought, and he didn’t think he could face a day of solemn silence with only his own roiling thoughts for company. He reached out and picked up the phone, re-listening to Mike’s message and selecting ‘call back’ when the automated voice prompted him. 

Heart pounding with the sudden realisation he hadn’t rehearsed what to say, Eddie heard the phone on the other end click, and heard Mike smile into the words, “Mike Hanlon speaking, state your purpose!”  
Eddie opened his mouth to speak, feeling horrified when only a drawn out squeak came out.

“Erm – hello?” Eddie coughed,

“Hey Mike. It’s Eddie. Eddie Kaspbrak”

“Eddie hey!” Mike sounded happy to hear from him, relieved even. “Thanks for calling me back, how are you?”

Eddie opened his mouth to automatically say that he was fine thanks, but the memory of Richie’s hand peeling back the illustrated label on the beer bottle surfaced and the words choked in his throat. Mike waited patiently at the other end of the line.

“I’m not doing too great actually Mike” Eddie confessed. “I’ve had rather a bad week if I’m honest”

“Sorry to hear that Eddie,” Mike said softly after a moment. “It’s been a busy week at work, you must be exhausted. I was worried that maybe the case file I gave you turned out to be trickier than I originally anticipated too.” 

Eddie managed a light ironic chuckle at this words, “Yeah, you have no idea”

Mike seemed to consider for a moment before saying, “Well hey, what you doing today? Want to grab a coffee, you can tell me about it?”

Eddie was ready to dust off one of his pre-planned excuses from his bailing-out-of-plans arsenal, but he realised with a jolt, a coffee and a chat sounded really fucking good right now. 

“Er – yeah, yeah okay” he said, and he thought he heard Mike sigh with relief over the line.

“Great! I’ve gotto pick up Maria at 1:30, but how about 2:15 at that place on the corner by work, they do awesome pumpkin spiced lattes! ‘Tis the season right?”

Eddie had views on syrup, but he found himself smiling as he agreed, hanging up on Mike feeling better already. He glanced at his watch, segmenting the time between now and arriving at the coffee shop into tasks and began to get ready. 

“He didn’t want to pay for the things he really disagreed with” Eddie was explaining to Mike. He thought talking about Richie would be hard, that the words would stick in his throat, but he found himself enjoying regaling Mike with his Friday afternoon, almost like he was talking to a friend, about a friend.

Mike stirred his pumpkin spiced latte, “Like what kinds of things?” he asked with interest.

Eddie gestured airily, “Oh you know, weapons industry, white supremacy, homophobia, that sort of thing.”

Mike glanced up at Eddie, “Hmm. He did mentioned a few things on his cover letter now I think of it. He sounds like a hoot.”

Eddie found himself nodding emphatically, “yeah he is”, before catching himself before he wore his heart too much on his sleeve. Like a starving man met with a banquet, Eddie had to work hard not to be greedy with his first taste of attention, desire and friendship. Mike seemed to notice the shift in his tone,

“Well Eddie, sounds like you’ve managed to achieve that rare goal, actually getting the person you’re auditing to see you as a human being! Cheers to that!” he raised his latte, and Eddie clinked his black coffee against it, but his face fell as he replied,

“Actually, I don’t know about that. I don’t think it ended well”. He didn’t want to tell Mike about the beers and the cake, the swapping of deeply personal information and the electrifying almost touch of hands over a table flooded with condensation, not sure yet he could trust him. 

Mike took a sip of his coffee, smacking his lips appreciatively as he watched people rush past the windows. “Well, you said this guy has the worst filing system you’ve ever seen?” Eddie nodded earnestly, remembering the trashcan. 

“Sounds like you’ll have your work cut out for you sorting through it all, so you’ll have plenty of time to prove that you’re a human being just like everyone else.”

Eddie was slightly mollified, but couldn’t take Mike’s words entirely to heart; he wasn’t convinced within himself that he was a human being just like everyone else after all. 

\---------------------------------------

All the confidence he had built up talking to Mike on Saturday seemed to leak out of him as he got off the bus. Eddie felt like he was towing his own head behind him on a string like a balloon as he approached Richie’s store. An out of body light headedness washed over him as he turned the corner of the tree lined street, his heart pounding in his ears when he saw a ladder balanced against the shop front, Richie perched at the topmost rung repainting the faded sign. Passing Anna’s bakery, a heady whiff of vanilla hit his nose just as Richie looked down.

“Hi” Eddie tried tentatively, a hopeful smile feeling alien on his thin lips after an entire Sunday of grim faced anxiety. He’d lost sleep to nightmares again, feeling stretched and wan as he waited for a reply. Richie clenched his teeth accentuating his strong jaw, and turned back to daubing the wet paint ahead of him without a word. Eddie lowered his head, visibly shrinking under this hostile greeting and walked under the ladder to enter the shop. 

“Isn’t it bad luck to walk under a ladder Mr Kaspbrak?” Richie said as he was almost on the threshold. Eddie stopped for a moment, “I doubt I would notice” he replied quietly, over his shoulder. 

Walking over to his usual work space, he saw that the low table and tall chair had been replaced with proportionate ones. Anyone else might see this as a friendly gesture, but Eddie recognised it for what it was. Richie wanted him to be as comfortable as possible, so he could do his work as quickly as he could, and get the hell out of his shop and life. 

That Monday was a new kind of hell for Eddie. He didn’t think he’d long for the obnoxious distractions Richie had tortured him with on the Friday before, but now he’d had a taste of attention, brief as it had been, the feeling of being grey again, invisible, smothered him like waves over a drowning man. Surrounded by colour and life, happy voices and music mingling with laughter, he felt like some small, inadequate imposter. He kept his head down, trying not to hear when Richie made someone laugh, or when he sat and chatted for an hour with Jack about the album he’d finished listening to. He tried not to notice that everything here orbited Richie’s gravitation pull, including himself. He put his head down and worked.

“Wanna play a game mr tax man?” said Jack’s voice above him. It was hours later and nearing lunchtime. Richie had finished the sign and had strolled whistling through the store with the ladder over his shoulder, bringing in a smell of turpentine and oil based paint. Eddie looked up from his work into the Jack’s face, glanced at his grimy hands fidgeting with his pockets. 

He absentmindedly massaged a crick in his neck.  
“Sure”, he gestured to the seat next to him and turned to face Jack. “What do you want to play?”

Richie walked in from the back half an hour later, pausing slightly at the door as he took in the sight at the front window. Jack was sitting with Eddie, playing hangman. Eddie was concentrating hard, and whenever he gave a letter that wasn’t in the word Jack had thought up, Jack whooped and giggled, borrowing Eddie’s pen to mark it down on the paper. Long dimples bracketed Eddie’s quiet smile that he mostly hid behind a hand when he got a letter wrong. Looking at the papers strewn across the table, Richie realised it was at least the fifth game they had been playing. He heard a small beeping come from Eddie and saw him glance quickly at his watch, silencing the noise with a push of a button. 

“Lunch break over mr tax man?” asked Jack.

“It’s okay, lets finish the game” said Eddie, taking the pen back from Jack and drawing an arm on the stick man. “You forgot that, you’re going too easy on me, Jack.”

Looking at Eddie began to hurt, like when he had looked at the sun as a kid because his mom told him not to. He turned and walked back into the storeroom office, shaking it off, not wanting to fall into the trap of Eddie fucking Kaspbrak again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next few chapters will explore more adults themes more than likely, so please be aware as you read ahead!


	4. The quiet resolve of Eddie Kaspbrak

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things come to a head when Richie is held accountable for his actions, and Eddie holds himself accountable for his life choices, or lack thereof.
> 
> Doodled a little illustration for this chapter:  
> https://howlermonkey88.tumblr.com/post/631039473070866432/alone-in-the-attic-listening-to-the-laughter

Eddie had a day of presentations and refresher training sessions on Tuesday, but though his wiry body sat in a chair in the bland uptown IRS building, his mind occupied his place in Richie's store. He wondered if Jack had found someone else to play hang man with, wondered what special Anna had on the counter of the bakery. Ever a sucker for punishment, he was spending a golden few minutes reliving the bittersweet gift of the karpatka when a voice cut through his day dreams,

"...for tomorrow Kaspbrak?"

He jolted in his chair, fixing unfocused eyes with difficulty on the vice president of his division. The moment dragged on for infinity. Mike was scribbling furiously next to him, and Eddie stole a glance at the paper he had pointed at him.

It just said 'Say yes'

"Yes sir, absolutely" said Eddie quickly, with no idea at all what he was agreeing to.

The VP nodded curtly, "Good. Have it in to my assistant by noon Kaspbrak."

Eddie nodded, still slightly dazed. Mike was still scribbling, and this time he tore off the page, handing it to Eddie when his back was turned. It was an assignment to assess the efficiency and liklihood of risk for a new coding system they had been trained in a few weeks back. Eddie had a degree in Risk Analysis, so often got these sort of tasks, despite it not being in his pay grade. He sighed as he looked down at the paper and thanked Mike quietly, giving him a genuine smile of appreciation. It would take all morning the next day, eating into his time at Trashmouth Records.

It was nearing 2pm when Eddie walked into the store on Wednesday. Richie's eyes didn't so much as flicker from the pages he was scribbling on, not even when Jack called from the armchair loudly (wearing headphones) "Hey mr tax man!"

Eddie sat down at his usual space and began to dig into Richie's rumpled files. He'd managed to sift his way through three quarters of the fiscal year with da vinci code levels of deduction, finding himself less irritated and more amused each time he found a particularly indecipherable inventory or receipt. He knew he should string this out longer, but everytime Richie called him Mr Kaspbrak when he absolutely had to talk to him, it felt like another nail in the coffin, and Eddie knew he'd have to get out or be buried alive.

"You may have to move upstairs if you're planning on being here any longer Mr Kaspbrak" said Richie above him. Eddie's stomach flipped as he looked at his watch. It was 16:30, far too early for closing time. He looked around at various people shifting furniture, one of them noisily dragging the drum kit off the stage. How didn't I hear that, thought Eddie.

Richie anticipated the question on Eddie's face, "Its comedy night, so we're getting set up, then there'll be practise, its going to be noisy and ... you'll be in the way if you're still here" he finished as though worried Eddie would think he was being considerate on his account.

Eddie looked into the studiously blank face behind the glasses, weighing up his options. Going home now meant more work tomorrow, but it also meant he wouldnt have to hear Richie saying Mr Kaspbrak again until tomorrow either. He grit his teeth, buying time by glancing habitually at his watch. An impatient sound from Richie made his mind up. He'd stay and try to finish as much if this as possible.

"I'll move upstairs if you don't mind, Mr Tozier" he replied professionally, not looking at Richie but gathering up his things. Richie waited until he was ready and gestured for him to follow. They climbed a narrow staircase from the storeroom and Eddie found himself in a cramped attic full of broken furniture and yellowing dust jackets. A table and chair was pushed against the grimy window looking out on the street, looking depressingly like Bob Cratchit's sad set-up in A Christmas Carol. Eddie took it all in, filled with an urgent mad desire to just turn and grab Richie by the stubbled face and hold him tightly to himself.  
He twisted slightly towards the other man, but,

"Its all yours, Mr Kasbrak" said Richie, swinging the door shut behind him.

His watch ticked away the seconds as Eddie drew on his well honed discipline and worked. He worked through the sounds of furniture being dragged around downstairs, Richie sometimes yelling in a mock Italian accent when something fell with a crash. He worked when the shop door began to open and slam closed as people poured in from the street outside. He heard happy greetings and peals of laughter, as the light outside was snuffed out in favour of night, and he realised the room didn't have a light bulb when he could no longer see the words on the papers in front of him.

He sat quietly in the gloom, wanting to go home, steeling himself to go downstairs when he heard Richie's voice, louder than ever in the stage microphone. He couldnt discern what he was saying, only that whatever it was, it was drawing raucous laughter from the small crowd squeezed into the room below. Eddie ached to be down there in the light, with people. He wondered if Richie's best friends were down there right now. He'd told him all about them that Friday, of fierce creative Bev, her handsome good hearted husband Ben, and steady Bill, a writer. Eddie had tried to imagine what it must be like to have friends like that, who knew you so well and for so long, more than family because you chose them, and they chose you. 

Feeling heart sick, he packed up his things and made his way downstairs. Pausing before opening the door to the counter bar, he tried to feel brave enough to walk through a room full of happy people without feeling like he was haunting them, a grey ghost of a man sneaking into their midst from the attic. Squaring his shoulders, he pushed open the door, turning swiftly to walk behind the counter, behind the tables and chairs and towards the door. He thought he heard Richie pause in his act, and caught a brief glimpse of him bedecked in his brightest hawaiian shirt, lit up on stage, before Eddie let the door close on him and was swallowed up in the night.

\-------------

"I've really fucked this up Bev" moaned Richie, his head on his hands, resting on the bar. Everyone had left but his three best friends, who now crowded round him in concern.

"What are you talking about Rich?" asked Bev, her hands stroking his unruly hair.

"I didn't give him enough credit for his childhood, his whole life. I didnt give him time man! He told me about himself that first day we met, even though I'd been an asshole to him all day for just doing his fucking job!."

Bill glanced sidelong at Bev and Ben, "Yeah but an IRS agent Richie? He's gotto be used to that by now."

Richie scrubbed his hands over his face with a groan, "Oh fuck, and I've been treating him like he isnt a human being all fucking week."

Ben frowned, "Come on Richie, I seriously doubt that, you dont have it in you".

Richie shrugged, "Well maybe not like he isn't human, but at least like hes not worth my notice."

He stared into the middle distance, thinking about the look on Eddie's face as he left the store during Richie's set. He thought of him sitting up in the attic alone, listening to them all having the time of their lives below, excluded. Alone.

His face screwed up as the guilt washed over him, "Didn't you see his face when he left?" he asked the others.

They shrugged, "Honestly I dont remember seeing anyone Richie, I was too busy watching you" said Bev consolingly. Richie flinched at the thought of everyones attention being on him, while Eddie Kaspbrak flitted out unnoticed.

"Maybe you went too far Richie, but you should be used to that by now, its kind of your thing. You can make it up to him tomorrow" reasoned Bev in calm tones. She looked to Ben, prompting him to say something,

"Yeah Richie, when he comes back tomorrow, just be you're usual friendly and infuriating self" he smiled warmly.

"I feel sorry for the guy already," smirked Bill, clapping a hand on Richie's shoulder. "I'm off then guys, Audra will be waiting up. See you Friday?"

The others nodded, glancing back at Richie. "Yeah, see you Friday" said Bev, "Unless Richie has better plans by then and stands us up".

Richie didnt raise his head from the bar, but they heard the muffled, "Fuck you, fuck all of you".

\-----------------------

Richie didnt get a chance to make it up to Eddie, because he didnt show up all day. Everytime the door opened, Richie's heart stuttered and he looked up, hoping to see the impeccably dressed man striding in from outside. The door opened and closed again and again, bringing in cold air from outside. By 17:30 Richie knew it was a lost cause, but he dallied over closing up, just in case.  
Tomorrow, he thought. Tomorrow he would make it up to Eddie.

Friday dawned frosty and crisp, and Richie was in the store earlier than usual, coffee clutched in his hand, wiping down Eddie' table fastidiously. At the official opening time of 9am, the door opened and Richie turned, heart in mouth. It wasn't Eddie. A man just as well dressed as Eddie had been, in a similar charcoal grey suit, he smiled as he walked towards Richie with his hand extended.

"Mr Tozier?" Richie returned the handshake, nodding.

"My name is Mr Hanlon, from the IRS. I've come on behalf of Mr Kaspbrak who has been maintaining your file"

"Is he ok?" Richie asked.

Mike ran his eyes over Richie's face for a moment before answering,  
"Yes, of course . He's taken a few personal days and has asked me to collect your paperwork. He will be working on it from the office from now on".

Richie felt his stomach drop.

"Why?" he asked, not managing to disguise the plaintive whine in his voice.

"He said he needs a less distracting place to work. I believe he's found your filing system tricky to decipher" Mike smiled, thinking he was sharing a good natured joke with Richie. When the tall man just stood there, Mike cleared his throat.

"If you could show me the remaining paperwork, I can pack it up and take it with me Mr Tozier"

In a daze, Richie picked up the almost empty trashcan by Eddie's table and made to hand it to Mike. The agent took it from Richie and peered into it. A look of sudden understanding passed over his face, and all signs of a smile dissappeared as he looked up at Richie.

"This is the paperwork you gave to Mr Kaspbrak?" he asked, flatly.

Richie felt guilt and shame gnawing his gut, "Yeah. Yeah - it was, sort of a joke".

Mike picked out a torn and crumbled receipt from the bin, saying in cold tones, " A joke Mr Tozier? This is funny to you?"

In the face of Mike's calm disapproval, Richie felt the appalling weight of responsibility hit him like a punch to the face.

"I used to think so. I don't anymore. Listen Mr Hanlon, do you have a contact number for Eddie, er - for Mr Kaspbrak?"

Mike dropped the paper back in the trashcan and began to scoop out the contents into his briefcase. "I'm not at liberty to share that information Mr Tozier."

Richie had expected that, but tried again, "I just want to apologise to him, for messing with him about all this. I know he was just doing his job." He reached out his open hands in supplication, wanting to be forgiven for his colossal fuck up.

Mike pushed the empty trashcan into Richie's hands, "That's all noted Mr Tozier" he replied, " Thankyou for your time today. Goodbye" and he turned on his heel and left the store.

\----------------

Eddie had made a resolution when he'd left Richie's store that Wednesday night, his ears ringing with laughter and his mind full of Richie, bright as a bird of paradise on stage. He had finally looked at his life from the outside in, really looked at it, and saw just how much he'd allowed himself to be carried along. Words he never said, things he never did, haunted his journey home, until he found his feet marching determinedly towards his phone the moment he arrived. Five minutes later he had left two answer machine messages; one to HR requesting two personal days, and one to Mike asking him to collect Richie's paperwork for him. Ever the risk analyst, if Eddie's newly formed plan didnt pay off, he didnt want to have to slink back into the store with his tail between his legs next week to finish Richie's case. Then he turned off his phone, brushed his teeth and went to bed, feeling some semblance of peace in his new found resolve, not even remebering to dread the inevitable nightmare.

\----------------------------

Mr Hanlon may not have given him Eddie's number, but there were more ways than one to track it down. A morning googling everything about the IRS headquarters uptown and Richie had Eddie's home number, rejoicing that it was unlisted. He grabbed his phone and called it immediately. Answer machine. He hung up, wanting to talk to Eddie, not a god damn machine, but when the machine picked up a further four times, he waited for the beep and said,

"Hey Eddie, its Richie. Richie Tozier. I met your colleague this morning, he came to pick up all your stuff. I hope this doesnt mean I wont be seeing you again?" his voice trembled and he took a moment to gain control, "Listen Eddie, I'm really sorry about how I've been towards you all week. I've felt so shitty about it, you have no idea." Fuck, he was making excuses, "there's no excuse for how I've treated you Eddie, none at all. I hope you can forgive me" his voice cracked and he shoved a knuckle in his mouth, biting down on it before saying in a babble "There's another comedy night at my place tonight, if you can make it I'd love to see you, my friends would love to meet you. I'm so sorry Eddie. Bye."

Heart pounding in his ears, he figured Eddie would get the message quickly, being on a personal day, and hoped he would call back.

\----------------

Eddie wasn't home to see the blinking light of the answering machine, or to hear Richie's apology filling his apartment. He was downtown on a Friday, not wearing his usual grey suit but comfortable chinos and a cable knit sweater. His neat hair was covered in a knitted beanie, a scarf wound around his neck to protect from the chill, not looking too out of place in this area of artisan bakeries, craft ale houses and vintage stores. Eddie was on a mission, visiting each and every vintage clothes store in the little district with his usual intense single mindedness. He needed to finish this with enough time to get them home and washed, his skin crawling at the idea of how many people may have worn these clothes.

When he got home, distracted in his ministrations of washing and drying his purchases, Eddie only noticed the light blinking on the machine when he was on his way out. He glanced at his watch and back at the machine. No time, he decided.

\----------

Richie had forgone his set to sit in the audience near the bar, hoping against hope that Eddie would show up. As the evening drew on, and the looks of sympathy intensified on his friends faces, he felt himself growing more and more surly with the disappointment of it all. Of course Eddie hadn't come. He was probably reporting Richie to the IRS for wrongful telephone number approproation even now. He tried to ignore the meaningful glances his friends telegraphed to eachother over him as he glowered the evening away, secretly knowing he wasn't being entirely fair again.

\-----------

Eddie had taken a late bus to Richie's, wanting to bask a little in the second hand laughter of the comedy night before talking to Richie alone afterwards. The windows were densely steamed up when he arrived, the room within hot with people and the street outside twinkling with frost. He couldnt make out much of anything from within, so Eddie scrubbed a patch clear on the bench opposite the shop and sat down, trying not to shiver.

\-------------

"You tried buddy. That's all you can do. Its his loss that he didnt come tonight " Bill was saying consolingly to Richie.

"Yeah honey," said Bev, looking with worry at Richie's uncharacteristically hard expression, "don't worry about it anymore. Come have a drink with us huh? How about Molly's in the next street?"

Richie nodded, his expression not changing and shrugged on his jacket. Ben was already at the door, opening it to let Bev and Bill out. Shoving his hands in his pockets, Richie followed, lost in a whirl of disappointment. Looking up as he left the shop, he saw through a gap in his friends, sitting on the bench by the street, looking absolutely freezing cold, Eddie Kaspbrak.

The change in his expression startled his friends as they turned to see what he was looking at. A small man wrapped up in a thick scarf, his hair hidden under a hat but for the tuft of brown lying across his forehead, his hands red with cold, straightening something in a box on his lap and quite oblivious to being noticed by the four people on the sidewalk.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next chapter will be explicit and of a mature nature, be warned! :)
> 
> Illustration for this chapter:  
> https://www.tumblr.com/blog/howlermonkey88


	5. Because, I want you

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is heavily influenced by the dreamy work of @trashcanprinsta on Instagram and Twitter, particularly the gorgeous pink comic of Eddie finding Richie's achilles heel. Or achilles earlobe in this case. Have a look ;)
> 
> https://mobile.twitter.com/trashcanprince/status/1270169026249945089

“Are you stalking me Mr Kaspbrak?” said a familiar voice above him. Eddie looked up quickly to see Richie, his hands in his pockets, frowning down at him. He wasn’t alone. A woman with red hair Eddie guessed was his friend Bev stood next to him, a hand protectively resting on Richie’s shoulder. She was scrutinising Eddie with an expression of reserved curiosity, the hand not on Richie resting on her hip. A man stood by her, regarding Eddie with a small smile. Good hearted Ben. A man stood at Richie’s other side, looking down on Eddie with an appraising look. His hair was greying where it fell over his eyes, which were narrowed slightly as they took him in. This must be Bill, thought Eddie, Richie’s writer friend. Richie had told Eddie so much about them, he had fantasised about meeting them some day, perhaps shaking their hands with Richie’s arm slung easily across his shoulder. The last thing he would have wanted was this cold meeting in the street, the four of them towering over him as he sat shivering on the bench outside of Richie’s store.

He stood up, adjusting the box in his hands, and said quietly, “Hi Richie”. 

Richie didn’t say hi back. He couldn’t quite trust himself yet, instead saying, “So you got my message then? Was it not heartfelt enough for you to come inside? Had to torture me a little longer maybe?”

Eddie’s eyebrows contracted, “Wh-what message?”

Bill and Bev glanced at their friend between them and back at Eddie. Richie was staring ahead at Eddie, face inscrutable. Bev put her hand gently on Richie’s arm and he turned to her, “I’m fine Bev.” Turning back to Eddie, he said in a harder tone, “You didn’t get it? Then what do you want Mr Kaspbrak? These aren’t exactly office hours you’re keeping here. Or is this the IRS’ new policy to extort record store owners who barely break even- a midnight ambush?”

Bill smirked a little at Richie’s jibe, but Eddie didn’t let his eyes leave Richie’s face. He felt his hands getting sweaty and shifted his grip on the box. The movement drew Richie’s eyes to it for the first time, and twisting his mouth into a sly smile he said,

“Whatcha got there? My completed tax return? The decapitated head of an ex-boyfriend?”

Eddie held the box tightly to himself, and he said in a small voice, “No, I – brought you flowers.”

Richie’s smile slid from his face. His blue eyes raked across Eddie’s brown ones, as though trying to find the man he had drank beers with, laughed with and opened up to. There must have been a glimmer of Eddie in there to reassure him, because he turned to his friends and said, “Guys, you don’t need to hang around, it’s fine”.

“I don’t know Richie...” began Bill

“Really Bill,” said Richie reassuringly, “you can go, don’t worry about me”.

Bev looked a little torn about leaving Richie, but she gave his shoulder a squeeze before catching Ben’s arm and walking off slowly down the street, with many backward glances at Richie and Eddie. “We’ll be at Mollys,” she called back, “If you need us.”

Richie ran a hand over his face in an exhausted gesture, his voice tired and with a nasal edge as he said, “What are you doing here, Eddie?”

“I brought you flowers”, Eddie said again, in an almost mournful tone, his face slack and eyebrows drawn together, as though this act of standing before Richie had taken absolutely everything out of him, everything but the desire to tell Richie exactly how he felt about him. The box of shook slightly in his hands as Richie edged slowly closer, as if afraid any sudden moments might scare Eddie away. He peered owlishly inside and saw at least a dozen vintage Hawaiian shirts, heavily floral and brightly coloured, neatly folded so that a section of each was visible against the other. It was a riot of flowers, an absolute rainbow in the hands of this grey clad man.

He swallowed, his adam’s apple bobbing visibly in his stubbled throat as he took a step back and allowed his eyes to travel up from the flowery shirts in Eddie’s hands to his face. Huge brown doe eyes met his, at odds with the tight lips set in a determined line.

“There’s probably a better way of doing this, of telling you this,” Eddie said, slowly and deliberately, like he had rehearsed it, “but I needed to tell you, that I want you” he finished almost matter of factly. 

Richie’s arms folded across his chest loosened slightly in surprise, but he kept his distance from the shorter man, remembering how he felt last time he got too complacent around Eddie Kaspbrak, not wanting to be burned again. 

But Richie was Richie, and he couldn’t help himself when he said, “...what happened to not being allowed to give or receive gifts, Mr Kaspbrak? Bit of a mixed message here, doncha think?” Eddie looked down at the box of shirts for a moment, and back up again at Richie, his face such a mixture of sorrow and desire Richie felt his gaze like a gut punch and a hand on his heart.

“I – I know...”

“Bit inconsistent Mr Kaspbrak”, he interrupted unable to help himself, “and isn’t there some big, boring established rule about, fucking fraternising with -”

Eddie nodded, “Auditor/auditee relations, yes”

Richie quirked up his eyebrows, “Then what are you doing?”

“I don’t care anymore” said Eddie evenly. 

“Why not?” asked Richie, his heart beginning to hammer. 

Eddie looked at him as though the answer was the most obvious thing in the world.

“Because I want you”

Richie’s apartment was as chaotic as his store. His eclectic collection covered every available surface, and even the walls were hung with paraphernalia – vintage 80’s movie posters and old guitars. Eddie’s eyes lingered on one, a heavily decorated acoustic of cherry red wood.  
Richie caught his gaze, “That was my first pay cheque for a comedy gig” he said with a crooked smile. Eddie looked at him, brown eyes soft and warm in the half light of the room, all pre-tense fallen away, no longer sliding from Richie’s face, his arms, his broad shoulders, his stubbled jaw. Richie couldn’t help the grin that began to form self consciously on his scrutinised face as he said, “A friend of a friend had a tiny comedy place, smaller even than mine, and gave me a chance. Couldn’t afford to pay me but gave me that instead. Pretty good deal at the time for me actually, I fucking bombed.”

Eddie laughed. The sound of it hit Richie in the gut like a punch. As he raked his eyes over Eddie’s crinkling eyes, his previously unseen dimples and his perfect teeth, he was filled with a toe curling and all consuming need to make Eddie laugh again. And again. And again. Eddie’s laugh settled into a broad smile as he returned Richie’s gaze. His eyes flickered to Richie’s lips, then journeyed down across his neck and shoulders. Richie’s tongue felt glued to the roof of his mouth as the intensity of Eddie’s gaze raked over him so powerfully he swore he could feel it. He drew in a deep, shuddering breath and as Eddie’s eyes dipped below his waistline he gasped out, “Food! You must be hungry!” Eddie looked at him, self possessed and quiet. Richie absolutely ached for him. He swallowed thickly, audibly. 

“I’m not hungry” Eddie replied, calmly. 

“You must have been sat outside my store for hours Eddie, you’ve gotto be” replied Richie softly. Eddie looked down, his slim fingers fidgeting with his watch strap. Richie chuckled, "I thought you were trying to quit that, huh?"

Eddie glanced down at his hitherto forgotten watch, a cloud passing over his previously calm features. He sat on the sofa with a flump, feeling absurdly guilty. When the sofa sagged beside him, he knew Richie had followed him. Strong hands reached out and gently disentangled his from the strap, replacing them with Richie’s own. 

Eddie’s hand trembled at the sight of Richie’s fingers gently working on his slim wrist, undoing the clasp of his watch and sliding it off. It fell onto the carpet with a dull thud. The skin beneath was white, rarely exposed to sunlight. Richie let his fingers play gently across it, and Eddie gasped when he suddenly lifted his wrist to his mouth and laid a kiss on the delicate, previously hidden skin. Eddie’s eyes fluttered shut at the sensation, hyper aware of the sharp prick of stubble and soft glide of lips as Richie continued to kiss his wrist, twisting it gently to cover it all the way around. Eddie was on fire. As Richie reached the place his lips had started, a moan left Eddie completely against his will. His eyes snapped open. He caught the briefest glance of Richie’s blue eyes staring at his face in surprise when he closed them with a groan, pressing one more lingering kiss to Eddie’s wrist, before opening them again and leaning forward to hungrily catch Eddie’s lips with his. He gasped out, “Richie” when their lips were inches from each other, and Richie just had time to whisper deeply, “I know Eddie” before they crashed together. 

Richie drew Eddie onto his lap, the smaller wiry man straddling his thighs as he leaned down and deepened the kiss. Richie felt like he was coursing with electricity as he ran his hands up Eddie’s sleek torso, his slim but muscled back, and felt Eddie’s tongue enter his mouth. A deep rumbling moan met Eddie’s confidence, and when Eddie’s answering whine met his ears, Richie lost it. His hands ran down to Eddie’s ass, yanking him in closer, stomach to stomach. Eddie’s breath huffed out of him as they broke the kiss, his eyes huge and full of need. Richie moaned at the sight of him with no stimulation, throwing his head back on the couch. Eddie leaned forward and pressed his lips to Richie’s exposed neck, soft kisses quickly becoming burning bites as Richie’s hands travelled downwards.  
Richie relished in every bite, feeling Eddie unwind all at once against him. As Eddie made his way up Richie’s neck to his ear, Richie began to pant. When Eddie’s lips met his ear lobe, and Eddie’s teeth bit down on the soft flesh there, Richie growled and tightened his grip. With a gruff groan he stood up, Eddie’s legs wrapped around his waist and his hands holding tight to Eddie’s ass. He stood for a moment, dizzy enough to break the kiss, all the blood pouring from his head and down to his groin, his erection straining painfully against Eddie’s, who’d grown distressingly hard as Richie had picked him up. They panted into each others open mouths for a moment before Richie smiled softly at Eddie, his eyes drowsy with want. Pushing his hands against Richie’s broad shoulders, Eddie leaned back to take him in in all his mussed hair, flushed glory. He darted forward to kiss the dimpling corners of Richie’s mouth, peppering his entire face with kisses that became long and lingering, languidly making his way down to the longed for shell of Richie’s ear, the part of him he’d desired from the moment he’d met him. His tongue licked a broad stripe across it and his teeth nibbled at the sensitive lobe as he revelled in the keening noises he was drawing from Richie. Eddie was distantly aware that Richie was moving, walking them towards his bedroom, but with his eyes closed, his nose nestled in Richie’s musky hair and his lips caressing the stubbled skin of Richie’s neck, he may as well have been flying. 

Richie’s bedroom was as haphazard as the rest of his apartment, walls covered in neon bar signs and posters, lamps hung with scarves to mute their brightness. His bed was an oasis of calm in the chaos, and he carried Eddie to it with an unexpectedly quiet reverence. Eddie kissed him again as he slid down Richie’s front, sliding together and making their eyes flutter shut for a moment. Impatient hands dragged at clothing until they stood naked together, Richie all broadness and body hair, Eddie’s body spare and lithe. Richie groaned as he ran a hand down Eddie’s hard torso, then quirked his chin up for a kiss saying, “You must be the most beautiful IRS agent I’ve ever seen.” 

Eddie accepted the kiss with fervour, but knitted his eyebrows together cartoonishly as he replied, “Do not talk about the IRS when we’re naked Richie”. Before the taller man could reply, Eddie’s hands had shoved him down onto the bed, and Eddie himself was clambering over and on top of him, his hands feverishly exploring Richie’s body. Overwhelmed with emotion, with the feeling of having exactly what he wanted for once in his life, Eddie clasped Richie tightly. 

“I want you so bad Richie” he breathed into his neck.

“God Eddie. I want you too” Richie’s voice was deep and sonorous, rumbling through him and into Eddie.

Working Richie open was like a revelation to Eddie. In a sanitised life of never touching, and never being touched, taking the time to make a man feel this good, to be this close to someone, and for that someone to be Richie, was all consuming to Eddie. The sloppy, open mouthed, lazy kisses they shared while Eddie’s fingers worked in Richie became harder as Richie gasped out that he was ready, ready, fucking ready. He slowly withdrew his fingers from Richie, his eyes never leaving the other man’s blown out blue ones as he grasped his own painfully hard dick, lined it up and slowly began pushing his way in. The single minded intensity with which he had fixed Richie on that first day of meeting him had a hot flush to it now, but Richie recognised it immediately. It drove him insane to see it on Eddie’s face at this moment, as he bottomed out in Richie’s ass with a low grunt. 

“Fuck yeah, mr tax man” Richie gasped out throatily, inches from Eddie’s concentrated face. 

“Don’t fucking call me that in bed you asshole” wheezed out Eddie, drawing himself out of Richie a little as he spoke. He jerked his hips forward to push back in, dragging a whine from Richie he’d not heard yet.

Bathed in the pink glow of Richie’s neon light and the soft yellow table lamp, Eddie had never felt less grey in his life. Feeling Richie’s body beneath his own, the furnace heat of being inside of him, he had never felt less cold. He began to move in earnest, keen to draw more of those sounds from Richie’s mouth, capturing as many as he could with his kisses as he caged Richie in between his arms on either side of his head. 

The course hairs that covered Richie’s chest rubbed against him as he sought as much contact as possible, chasing the growing burn in his abdomen. When he felt Richie’s thighs squeeze around his hips, and felt Richie’s feet meet at this back, he picked up the pace instinctively, needing to move, needing to please Richie, needing to please himself. 

He panted heavily over Richie’s sweaty body, watching the man’s face as he cried out with every thrust now. Richie tipped his head back with a loud moan, his mouth open, his teeth visible and prominent, his throat thickly stubbled. Eddie growled with desire and leaned in, licking a stripe up Richie’s throat, up over his sharp jaw and into his open mouth. Richie’s tongue met his and they worked together with each other, wet and slippery, hot and messy. Eddie felt like he was lost on a wave of sensation, over stimulated from being buried deep inside of Richie, pressed against the heat of Richie, tongue laving over the wetness of Richie’s mouth, licking against the overbite that drove him crazy. He pressed his stomach harder against Richie, feeling the man’s erection trapped between their stomachs as Richie cried out into his mouth.  
“Fuck, Richie” he gasped out, drawing away for a moment. 

“You gonna come Eddie?” Richie asked huskily, his face rosy, his head riding up and down the pillow as Eddie thrust inside him again and again. Eddie could only nod, keening in the back of his throat. 

He felt Richie’s hands reach out, grasping either side of his head and working his fingers into his hair as his hips thrust more erratically, entirely outside of his control. When he felt Richie’s fingers drag at his scalp, he came hard. He couldn’t take his eyes off Richie as wave after wave of pleasure crashed over him. Like day after night, food after fast, a garden after a graveyard, he felt more alive than he ever had before. As he rode out the orgasm, he felt Richie tightening around him, and felt the hot wetness of his spend between their sweat drenched stomachs. Arms shaking, Eddie waited until Richie’s breathing grew even, and slowly withdrew his softening dick from him. He already felt bereft, confident he could die happy buried to the hilt in Richie. He collapsed next to him, completely and utterly relaxed, their hands idly twisting together between them. Richie chuckled drunkenly as he drew Eddie’s hand up to his mouth to be kissed. He was still slightly out of breath when he said,

“You wanted me Eddie? You fucking got me.”


	6. Typical.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eddie had everything he could want, and nothing can change that now ...

Richie’s arms, Richie’s kisses, and the best week of Eddie’s life. That’s what came of being brave enough to bring Richie flowers in Hawaiian shirt form, and tell him that he wanted him. Eddie got to see Richie shrugging them on every day, a different one for each day of the week. Eddie got to tear them off too, peeling them from Richie’s broad back with a hunger he didn’t think he could ever satisfy. He didn’t need to starve himself anymore, didn’t need to be disciplined, not with Richie.  
He was as giving and generous as Eddie suspected he would be. He wasted no time in introducing Eddie properly to his best friends, who welcomed Eddie as one of their own more quickly than he could have dared hoped. He sobbed one night when they were sitting on the couch reading together, curled into Eddie and asking for his forgiveness for the way he had treated him before. He showered Eddie in attention, gave him sordid winks and suggestive eyebrow waggles during his sets to make him blush, listened with genuine interest about his day even when Eddie knew it was boring – because it was Eddie’s day, Eddie’s life, and Eddie could never be boring to Richie. He seemed to idolise him, and Eddie sometimes found it hard to go from invisible and unregarded to a deity on earth, at least in Richie’s eyes.  
For the sheer novelty of seeing bright and goofy Richie in his clinical, stark apartment, Eddie had taken him there once, revelling in the sight like he’d brought a wild animal into a tea room. For the most part, night times found Eddie wrapped in Richie’s arms in his warm apartment, lost in a haze of utter contentment, and when he woke from the usual nightmare now, Richie was there to smooth his hair from his brow and sooth him back to sleep with soft murmurs of love in his ear. He still worked on Richie’s tax return, but now he could give him a playful punch or a gentle kick in the shins when he found an indecipherable receipt. 

\--------------------------------

“Richie” moaned Eddie between kisses, his hips languidly thrusting.  
“Mmm” was all Richie’s reply, his eyes fixed lazily on his hand between them, grasping their erections in a tight circle, faces inches from each other.  
Eddie tried to focus, “Richie. I’ve been thinking” When Richie didn’t reply he continued,  
“If you keep the receipts for all your purchases from Anna’s bakery, you can claim them as expenses because they’re for your patrons” he babbled quickly. Richie huffed out a quick sigh,  
“Eddie...”  
He captured Eddie’s lips in a searing kiss, but Eddie pulled back, “If you did that, the IRS might even owe you money, the amount you spend on everyone. It would easily cover the deficit,”  
“Eddie, baby”, breathed Richie against his mouth, “The point is NOT to pay.”  
“Please Richie, just do it! I don’t want to see you go to jail for 13 fucking percent, you anarchist asshole”  
A kiss landed lightly on Eddie’s nose, the tenderness at odds with the fierce grip Richie had on their leaking dicks between them.  
“Okay. Okay” he reassured Eddie, then with a smile he drawled lustily, “Now why don’t you whisper a little more of that tax talk in my ear, Mr Kaspbrak.”  
Eddie groaned and moved to press his lips into the delicate skin behind Richie’s ear, nibbling the lobe and dragging his free hand through the sex mussed hair. He felt Richie’s hips beginning to stutter, his huge hand working faster over their erections. His lips moved against Richie’s ear as he said, “13 percent” in a low whisper.

“Oh FUCK” Richie moaned, and with a deep cry he came over their hands, Eddie following close behind.

Cleaning up, they repositioned themselves against each other, legs tangled together, Eddie’s face pressed against Richie’s chest, Richie’s lips pressing soft kisses into Eddie’s hair. Eddie slept soundly encircled in strong arms, not disturbed by nightmares for the first time in weeks. 

\---------------------------------------------------

Lost in the heady memory of last night, revelling in the ghosts of the intense sensation he could still feel across his body, Eddie waited at the bus stop for the 08:34. He glanced at this watch, only to be met with a white strip of skin on his otherwise tanned arm. The memory of Richie’s mouth moving across that skin made him smile softly to himself. The watch was still on the floor of Richie’s apartment, he realised, had been for a week. He turned to the woman next to him and asked for the time. Frowning at him, she impatiently pushed back her blazer sleeve to check her watch, and said, “It’s 08:45”. He’d missed it.  
He found he didn’t care, and basked in the revelation. He strolled towards the main stand to see when the next bus was due, when he heard a noise that made his blood run cold. It didn’t fit with the general hubbub of the station, primarily full of adults going to work, studiously ignoring each other in favour of phones or books. It was the sound of a child laughing, and he’d heard it before. He’d heard it almost every night in his sleep for weeks.  
Looking around for the source of the noise, Eddie saw a boy riding a silver bicycle through the station. He was laughing and glancing over his shoulder, and Eddie saw another boy following on a red bicycle, struggling to keep up.  
The boy on the silver bike sped up, trying to beat his friend to the other side of the road, turning to check where he was behind him. Too often. Not paying attention. Not looking where he was going. The risk analyst in Eddie turned to survey the boys path ahead, and with a sickening jolt he saw the bus. He wasn’t aware of beginning to run, but he saw as if in a dream the boy reach the curb and bounce onto the road. Saw him turn and see the bus that sped down onto him. Saw his own hands reaching out to yank the boy from his bike onto the curb again. Saw the brief white flash of his watch-less wrist ahead of him as bright lights blinded his vision and pain filled his world. He had time to feel his arm break, and then he was weightless. 

He fucking knew it was all too good to be true. The thought floated into being, pessimistic and angry, like a screeching scrawl on a blackboard or a flock of angry seagulls. Mother-fucking typical, scratched another thought. He’d finally gotten to love Richie out loud, and now this. At that, the pessimistic little scrawls seemed to fade, and instead a calm descended wherever Eddie was. Richie.  
Richie, Richie, Richie. Peace and love engulfed him, and he let it carry him off unresisting. He could almost feel strong arms around him. Almost. 

Beep. Beep. Beep.  
There’s my alarm, thought Eddie.  
Beep. Beep. Time to get up for work. He tried to open his eyes. They felt glued together. He tried to open them again, blinking rapidly.  
“Eddie?”  
That voice, so familiar but different somehow. Richie. He tried again, and slowly his eyes opened.  
Richie’s face swam into view, surrounded by bright lights. His eyes were red and swollen behind his glasses, his hair stood on end in places as though he had been pulling at it. When he saw the tears running down Richie’s face and into a few days worth of stubble, he reached out to touch him.  
Nothing happened. Slowly turning his eyes down to his body, he saw that he was strapped to a hospital bed, both legs and one arm set into hard casts. Wires led from him to various machines stationed around the bed, and one leg was elevated on a sling from the ceiling. Oh. 

“It’s okay. I’m okay,” he reassured Richie. 

Richie’s voice was a nasal outcry when he replied “Eddie, you’re not okay! You’re severely fucking injured!”

Eddie smiled appreciatively at him. Richie took his hand and looked hard into his face, smoothing back his hair from his forehead. “What happened?” he asked with a whimper.

Eddie thought back to that day, a thousand years ago it seemed, “There was a boy. I had to get him out of the way of the bus” he remembered. 

Richie’s voice was exceedingly gentle when he said “You jumped in front of a bus to save a little boy?”

Eddie nodded. “That little bastard!” growled Richie.

This took Eddie by surprise, “It wasn’t his fault Richie, he didn’t know.” But Richie wasn’t listening. Furiously he yelled “No, fuck him. Fuck that kid. You could have been killed!”

“Yeah” Eddie said, smiling, “but I wasn’t”

Richie held his gaze for a few seconds, tears trembling and threatening to spill, when he let out a sob and sank his face into Eddie’s side, tears soaking into hospital bedsheets and words of love falling on Eddie’s ears to the rhythm of the heart monitor. 

If it weren’t for taking off that watch, thought Eddie, that little boy would be dead. He may be in a hospital bed right now, but lying in a hospital bed with Richie Tozier by his side, loving him and jokingly planning elaborate revenge on a 10 year old boy was a far better place than most places on earth Eddie could think of. He wanted this, he realised. He reached out and he made it happen. As Richie doodled a wristwatch with a smily face on the cast of his left arm, talking at pace and making Eddie grin all the time, Eddie thought, thank fuck I let him take off my god damn watch.

**Author's Note:**

> If you haven't seen Stranger than Fiction, you should, it's wonderful.
> 
> Comments and kudos are loved and appreciated :)


End file.
